Everything Is Different
by seh28
Summary: Post 1x1. Following the pilot episode, this is the first face to face interaction between Danny and Lacey. Lacey is having a hard time dealing with the death of one friend, and the simultaneous reemergence of another. What transpires sheds some light on their relationship. Read & review.


Lacey paced anxiously as she waited for Danny to arrive. The high school was dimly lit, as the street lights were just starting to come on. The sun barely still illuminated the sky. This was the only place she thought that they could meet without being seen. She needed to have this conversation with him. Being in public was too risky, especially considering the way she might react. Going to either one of their houses was a stretch, as well. This was the best option, and on a Sunday night it was practically a ghost town.

She hadn't spoken to him since it happened. Almost to her surprise, he hadn't reached out to her following Regina's death. Lacey figured that was probably for many different reasons. Hopefully, not the one she feared most, yet couldn't really reconcile fully believing. Lacey was an absolute jumbled mess of emotions, and for some reason she felt that asking him face to face was going to make some of them dissipate. She could only hope that this type of logic would prove to be rational.

She heard him approaching her before she actually saw him. She wondered briefly if he purposely made his presence known so as not to startle or scare her. He walked closer to her, stopping a few feet away. They both took a millisecond to assess the other in silence before Danny broke it.

"Hi," Danny offered easily, his hands sliding into his pockets.

"Thank you for coming," Lacey replied as she cleared her throat, it was hard for her to look directly at him. Her already tumultuous mix of emotions seemed to be spiraling further out of control and he had just gotten there. She needed to make sure she got out everything she wanted to say.

"Of course," Danny responded softly, taking the sight of her in again. "Are you cold?"

"What?" Lacey posed, wondering where that had even come from. She quickly realized she was trembling a bit, but not from the temperature. The range of emotions that were careening inside of her were getting harder and harder to subdue. She took a shaky breath, and waved her hand dismissively. "No, I'm fine. Actually I'm not fine."

"Tell me," Danny stated with a slight nod of his head, his eyes left hers briefly as he readied himself for the onslaught that he felt was coming.

"Did you do this, Danny? Did you kill Regina?" Lacey asked pointedly, crossing her arms for leverage, a barrier against her own accusations, for warmth.

Danny's face didn't change as he let her words sink in. It hurt him, but it didn't surprise him. Even if it did surprise him, it shouldn't have. What he was, what she thought that he was, was going to follow him forever.

"No, Lacey," Danny answered, his eyes pleading with hers. "You know I didn't do this."

"I don't know that," Lacey responded bitterly, her confusion, sadness and anger mounting. Because as much as this was about the fact that she had just lost Regina, one of her best friends, she wasn't a stranger to this type of phenomenon. To this type of feeling. She'd lost a best friend before, just in a different way. Yet somehow he was standing right in front of her now. The juxtaposition was actually startling. "I want to believe that, but I don't know it."

"You were with me," Danny asserted reasonably as he watched her.

"But I fell asleep," Lacey pointed out, as she ran a hand through her hair. She played that night over in her head for the millionth time, trying to make sense of it all. Feelings of dread and regret started to flood over her as she thought about the last time she had seen her friend alive. "You were still awake."

"It wasn't me," Danny said simply. His mind briefly revisited the memories of that night and the text that Regina had sent him. His eyes left hers as he recalled that she didn't know that small detail. He silently and quickly struggled with whether or not he should tell her. He knew he couldn't, she already was doubting him.

"What?" Lacey questioned, noting the differences in his facial expression and body language after he had made his declaration of innocence. There was something else. Something that he wasn't saying and she could see it. She could sense it. "What aren't you saying?"

Danny didn't say anything as she waited for his response. It was strange that she still had the ability to read him so well after all of these years. It caught him off guard, he hadn't expected her question, or her directness. He didn't want to lie, he had never lied to her, but he couldn't tell her about the text; not now.

Lacey felt him withholding something and it infuriated her, so much so that she wanted to smack the truth out of him. She wanted to scream and yell at him. Why was he doing this to her? All of this was his fault. She had never had a normal life or childhood because of Danny Desai. Now he was back and things were spiraling out of control yet again. She felt like she was going to explode.

"Well this was obviously a waste of time," Lacey fumed bitterly, as she hurriedly attempted to brush past him.

"Lacey wait," Danny let out. Almost completely on instinct alone, he grabbed her arm to stop her.

Lacey immediately halted in her tracks at his touch. Her eyes found his swiftly, as his fingertips ran down the length of her arm and stopped to grasp her hand. The gentle pressure of his fingers and the look in his eyes made all of her anger and hurt disappear. The raw sadness and confusion was still there, but she wasn't angry anymore. His piercing brown eyes pleaded with her own and in that moment she knew he hadn't killed Regina.

"Lacey, I swear to you that I did not kill your friend." Danny said softly, he loosened his grip on her hand and yet her fingers curled around his. Lacey just nodded slightly and broke their eye contact. Beneath all of her emotions and hysteria, there was this specific energy between them in that moment that somehow wouldn't be ignored. It threw her off her center a bit.

Lacey's mind was suddenly flooded with memories of them as kids. Some of them felt like they had happened such a long time ago, and some like they never happened. Or as if they happened to someone else.

"You know, you used to be my favorite person," Lacey lamented lightly, memories playing like a slide show in her mind. She watched his thumb moving back and forth on the side of her hand.

"Well, you're still mine." Danny muttered, basking in her presence, her closeness, the way she smelled.

Lacey was suddenly catapulted back into reality, she released his hand and took a step back, finally looking him in the eyes again.

"Don't say that," Lacey insisted, her heart leaping and breaking all in one fell swoop. "You can't say things like that to me."

Her heart ached when she thought about how alone she felt after Danny had done what he'd done, and now again after Regina had been killed. Because regardless of her belief in his innocence now: he was still a murderer and Regina was still dead.

"We're both completely different, everything has changed," Lacey exclaimed, she felt her emotions getting away from her, tears were burning the corners of her eyes. She tried her best to fight them, but she was unsuccessful. She had reached her emotional threshold. "I wish none of this had happened, but it did. We can't just act like it didn't happen. Like you, Jo and I have spent the last five years being the good old three musketeers, when that's not what happened!"

It made Danny feel so helpless to watch her so upset and broken like this. He could never stand seeing her hurt, and now was no exception.

"I know," Danny whispered as he took a step towards her, his thumbs gently wiping the tears that had fallen on her face. "I know, I'm sorry."

"Danny, all of this is too much for me," Lacey choked out through a throat full of emotion. "I'm just so sad and confused and scared."

"What are you scared of?" Danny implored gently, almost petrified that she would say him. He couldn't handle her being fearful of him, that would wreck him.

"What if whoever did this to Regina doesn't stop?" Lacey gulped, trying to stop the tears from falling. "What if more people are in danger? What if I-"

"No one is going to hurt you," Danny interjected sternly, not even letting her finish that terrible thought. "Lacey, listen to me. No one will ever hurt you."

Lacey wanted to believe him, she wanted to trust him, and a good part of her actually did against her better judgment. But she was all messed up, she was so tired and confused and heartbroken that all she could do was cry. So Danny wrapped his arms around her and just let her unravel. She held onto him for dear life and cried because of so many things; the tears just seemed to pour from her for countless reasons.

After she had calmed down a bit, she took some breaths to regulate her breathing, feeling the moisture on his collar from all of her tears and finally spoke.

"I wish you never left us. I wish you never left me."

Although Danny didn't verbally respond, after everything that he had sacrificed and everything he had endured up until that point, he couldn't have agreed more.


End file.
